When driving under poor lighting conditions, for example at dusk or at night, motor vehicles must on the one hand permit a very good illumination of the area lying in front of the motor vehicle in the traveling direction, and on the other hand not expose other road users to glare in the process, for example preceding motor vehicles or oncoming motor vehicles. For this purpose, conventional motor vehicles have two basic light settings—low beam and high beam. The driver manually switches back and forth between the low beam and high beam depending on whether high beam would expose another road user to glare. The driver can either forget to do so, which inevitably results in other road users being exposed to a potentially dangerous glare, or refuse to use the high beam, thus posing the risk to him or herself of not identifying all safety hazards on the road early on.
Newer and advanced headlamp systems often have a so-called matrix light, which instead of a few lighting elements have a plurality of lighting elements that can be actuated individually or as a group, and each illuminate individual sectors. By turning the respective lighting elements on and off, the light distribution of the corresponding headlamp arrangement can be more finely tailored to the respective traffic situation than with conventional solutions. For example, matrix headlamps make it possible to have oncoming traffic be unaffected by the light distribution, and thus not be exposed to glare. Otherwise, however, the light can be set like a classic high beam, which optimizes the view for the driver of a correspondingly equipped motor vehicle.
It is known that corresponding matrix headlamps can be combined with object recognition, which automatically recognizes other vehicles, and thereby enables an automatic and dynamic adjustment of light distribution. To implement a dynamic light distribution, conventional systems require measuring an area ahead in the traveling direction with a camera, evaluating and identifying an object, classifying the object as an object to be faded out, calculating a light distribution, and finally implementing the light distribution in the headlamps. Each of these steps takes time, which is reflected in usual latencies between the recording and adjusting of light distribution measuring 0.2-0.3 seconds. When cornering, this means that the adjustment of light distribution lags behind an oncoming car rounding the curve. Without corrective measures, the oncoming motor vehicle would be driving partially in the light cone, and still be exposed to glare. The latency can be corrected by a correspondingly large safety range around the oncoming motor vehicle by turning off the lighting. As a result, however, the light distribution becomes inhomogeneous, and the illumination deteriorates. In addition, the response by corresponding systems to the emergence of an oncoming motor vehicle is delayed and jerky, which should be avoided so as not to irritate the driver.